World Bank grants $55mn loan to Afghanistan

Thursday, March 21, 2013
[PHOTO: Shiny Things/CC BY 2.0]
Washington: The World Bank has approved a $55 million grant from the International Development Association (IDA) to assist Afghan youth to advance their skills and competencies as the country expands its work force. A skilled and employable workforce is important to Afghanistan’s nation building efforts that can continue to drive the country’s prosperity and people’s wellbeing.

The Afghanistan - Second Skills Development Project (ASDP II), implemented by the Ministry of Education (MOE), focuses on building systems and institutions in the formal sector that will impart technical and vocational skills in diverse job streams.  This follows an earlier project financed by the World Bank that has been supporting formal and non-formal interventions since 2008. With this new financing, the World Bank will have provided a total grant of $93 million, including from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). The Government is contributing $5 million. Further support to the non-formal sector is being proposed under a separate project. The project will also contribute to creating self-employment opportunities by working with other projects like the Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Project (AREDP).

The most noteworthy success of ASDP to date has been the establishment of the National Institute of Management and Administration (NIMA), revitalizing the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) that is nurturing gifted young musicians in the country, and supporting the Blind School in Kabul. Most of the first cohort of NIMA graduates have been able to find employment within six months of graduation.  The project has also provided short term training in technical and business development for over 9,000 persons, more than a third of whom are women.
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